Picking a camera

[jena4]

Hi all. I need to pick out a camera for work. There are so many options and I'm not sure what the best one would be for my uses. If anyone could throw in their 2 cents, that would be very helpful. Here's what I'm looking at:

The use is for everyday use... mostly taking photos to be used in powerpoint presentations, but also needs to be high enough quality for photos to be used in magazine/newspaper advertisements.

We only want to spend in the $200 - $250 range. I see a Kodak Easyshare camera with 7.1 megapixels and a printer dock for $229.99. Any views on this one?

If you could even let me know if one brand is much better in quality than the other, that would be helpful. The camera we have now is very old so I forsee this new camera being used for years to come! Thanks for your help!

[PrintDriver]

A 7.1mp camera will only get you pictures in the just under 8" x 10" size at 300dpi. Is that's large enough for your magazine work?

[Drazan]

What are you taking pictures of?

Action?
Products?
Life?
Outside?
Inside?
Do you need a Macro setting for small objects or closeups?

Do you have a lighting set up? If you do then you can get good shots even with the lessor point & shoot or SLR-like.

http://www.dpreview.com/ is a good place to find all the spects on your camera of interest.

My personal choice since I take a lot of shots for the web is a Fuji s5200 ($350). But can only to a 5x6 average at 300dpi. It's a 5megapixel camera.

I'm not a big fan of Kodak. I've seen a lot of low light, blowout, and blurry photos from kodak line of cameras. Moreso as the actual type of pictures shouldn't have warrented a bad result. See if there's anything in Cannon or Fuji that would fit your needs.

A little more information on what you usually shoot would be helpful.

=)
Jade

[Broacher]

The 5 meg pixel camera (I've got a s5200 too) is 2592 x 1944 pixels. Even at the 'magic number' of 300 dpi (and that's not as firm as most people realize), that gives you 8.6 inches x 6.5 inches. I've used my shots for covers without anyone saying it was under-rezzed. A lot depends on the production, the subject, and the printing parameters.

Really, in the low-end camera budget, I would seriously consider the Fuji Finepix line. Even the 3x optical zoom model comes with Fuji's terrific CCD sensor which gives you far more room for 'available light' photography than any other camera in that price range. There's a good reason it's called the 'ProCon' camera. A lot of pro features in a point and shoot package.

That'll be 2 cents, please.

[jena4]

Hey, I'm back and happy to see I've had a few responses. :)

Printdriver:
"A 7.1mp camera will only get you pictures in the just under 8" x 10" size at 300dpi. Is that's large enough for your magazine work?"

Yes, the photos that I need are smaller than 8" x 10". That would not be a problem.

Drazan:
Action?
Products?
Life?
Outside?
Inside?
Do you need a Macro setting for small objects or closeups?

I work at a resort so I need to take pictures of people, outdoors, indoors. Mostly large shots and not much need for small objects or closeups. I need to take pics of our banquet facilities, spa, food, resort itself both indoors and outdoors. I had a feeling Kodak might not be the way to go. Thanks for the recommendation and the site!

Broacher
"Really, in the low-end camera budget, I would seriously consider the Fuji Finepix line. Even the 3x optical zoom model comes with Fuji's terrific CCD sensor which gives you far more room for 'available light' photography than any other camera in that price range. There's a good reason it's called the 'ProCon' camera. A lot of pro features in a point and shoot package.

That'll be 2 cents, please."

Thanks for the suggestion. Another Fuji recommendation. I'll look into it. Thanks. Oh, and I wanted your two cents, I don't have two cents to give you. :p Sounds like bits of string are worth something around here. Let me see if I can find any of that...

[Drazan]

Here's a sampling of photos taken with the fuji s5200.
http://jadeadragon.com/mnren06.php

Sorry - I'm redoing the site, so it's a wee bland right now. But this shows from people to close ups to action the fuji can take care of things quite well.
Of course the price has dropped since I first got it too. Check around the stores this holiday season you should see prices in the $270 mark. They are sold pretty much everywhere.

=)
Jade

[Ms.O]

Here's a great article on what to consider when buying a camera.

http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28591\ (http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28591/)

Also the December 2006/January 2007 issue of Dynamic Graphics had a good review on some cameras.

Just fyi.

[frankster]

This site might help also. It's got some nice comparisons of photo quality from different cameras taken in the same setting.

http://www.digicamreview.co.uk/2004/07/reviews.html

[jena4]

Thanks everyone for your responses, this will help me out a lot! :)